The biggest volcanic event in Earth’s history did more than build an ocean plateau: it permanently altered the chemistry of the underlying tectonic plate, Japanese geophysicists report. Analysing high-frequency seismic waves recorded by ocean-bottom seismometers, they found that the magma which created the Ontong Java Plateau 110–120 million years ago reacted with the mantle rocks of the Pacific plate, leaving a distinctive low-velocity signature that persists today. Published in Geophysical Research Letters, the finding provides the first evidence that such mega-eruptions can modify entire plates at the molecular scale, not merely puncture them.

The discovery coincides with a broader shift in how scientists observe hidden planetary processes. A gravity-field image that recently went viral on social media—misinterpreted as Earth’s “true shape”—is in fact a geoid model, the GOCO06s, based on 1 billion satellite measurements taken over 15 years. Exaggerated up to 10,000 times for visibility, the visualisation maps mass distribution and its effect on gravity: red peaks over the Andes and Himalayas, blue depressions over the Indian Ocean. “The gravity field changes month to month mainly because of water movement,” says Michael Watkins of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, revealing its utility for tracking groundwater and sea-level rise.

Simultaneously, work on other worlds is challenging static portraits. Simulations at ETH Zurich, published in Nature Geoscience, indicate that the enormous rift valleys on Venus are geologically young and probably widening at 3–10 cm per year—contradicting decades of assumption that the planet is tectonically dead. Around Jupiter, NASA’s Juno probe used its microwave radiometer to penetrate the surface of the hyper-volcanic moon Io. Close flybys in 2023–24 detected subsurface temperature surges exceeding 22°C, confirming that tidal flexing from Jupiter’s gravity delivers heat from Io’s interior in a sustained, observable flow.

A separate isotopic study, meanwhile, has sharpened the picture of Earth’s most famous impact. Scientists analysing nickel in the Cretaceous–Palaeogene boundary layer identify the Chicxulub impactor as a rare CO-type carbonaceous chondrite, publishing in Science Advances. The finding lowers the likely contribution of sulphur to the mass extinction and underscores the role of chance: an object from the outer solar system, rather than a common asteroid, happened to strike. Together, these results illustrate how remote and laboratory techniques—from gravity mapping to seismic scanning, microwave sounding and isotope geochemistry—are peeling back the skins of planets to reveal their dynamic engines.